PFA Reports

December 6, 2016 marks the first anniversary of the 2015 Constitutional Referendum in Armenia. On that date, citizens of Armenia went to the polling stations to express their views on constitutional amendments proposed by the executive branch, aimed at transforming the country’s governance structure from a presidential to a parliamentary system.

The report offers some innovative thinking about Armenia’s geopolitical potential and challenges the prevailing views about Western involvement in Armenia and the Caucasus. It explicitly ignores Armenia’s main handicapping factor—its leadership and governance problems—and lays out a vision for the country’s role in the region under a popular, clean, and independent government.

This is the third State of the Nation Report by Policy Forum Armenia and the eighth one in total, all focused on issues of critical importance for Armenia. The report brings to light many peculiarities of both wholesale and retail corruption in Armenia and offers mechanisms to reduce corruption.

PFA’s Special Report on “Armenian's 2012 Parliamentary Election,” provides an overview of political-economic and legislative developments in the period preceding the 2012 election and summarizes the reactions of key stakeholders to the election outcome.

PFA's Special Report on "Armenia: Averting an Economic Catastrophe" is a warning for people of Armenia, the Diaspora, and other stakeholders about an economic disaster in the making in the country. It provides an assessment of policies that have driven Armenia to where it is now and point out the signs of more trouble to come.

PFA’s Report on “The State of Armenia’s Environment” provides an overview of environmental challenges facing Armenia and highlights the severity of the current situation. It is intended to serve as a reference to a complex set of environmental issues that are closely intertwined with the country’s development.

PFA’s first State of the Nation Report entitled “Armenia-Diaspora Relations: 20 Years Since Independence” focused on the relations between Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora. It offers a critical evaluation of the engagement between the two halves of the nation following the inception Armenia’s independence movement in 1988.

To build on the analytical work laid out in the 2008 Election Report, PFA embarked on another election-related report entitled “Yerevan’s 2009 Municipal Election: Statistical Analysis.” The objective of the report was to examine the statistical properties of the data—including by comparison with 2008 and 2007 election data, where relevant—to reveal election irregularities. Similar to PFA's assessment of the 2008 presidential election, we found that the outcome of the May 31, 2009 municipal election in Yerevan did not produce any surprises.

Responding to the growing concerns about the potential implications of the world’s financial crisis on Armenia’s fragile economy, PFA produced its second report on “Implications of the World Financial Crisis for Armenia’s Economy.” The Report begins with a sobering discussion of global economic conditions and their causes. It predicts that the existing adverse conditions in the world’s financial markets and real economies will have a strong impact on Armenia’s economy regardless of how isolated its relevant sectors are from the rest of the world.

Consistent with its mission and operational objectives, and responding to events unfolding in Armenia, in July 2008, PFA published its first special reports entitled “2008 Armenia’s Presidential Election: Select Issues and Analysis,” provided a thorough and multi-disciplinary analysis of events surrounding the February 19, 2008 presidential election in Armenia.